Tag Archives: Hell Hospital

Hell Hospital: Episode 17

11 Sunday Sep 2011

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Simulated group of children - probably on their way to bed or to play cricket

By Theseustoo

By the time the Reverend Petros Batty met Dr Frood at the hospital, the baby was still nowhere to be found. The nursing staff, following Nurse Paula’s suggestion, had decided that, for the sake of ‘keeping the record straight’ at the same time as avoiding the embarrassment the hospital’s board-members would inevitably suffer should the media ever get hold of the story about the missing baby, had decided it would be best to lose all records of the baby too; if anyone asked they could then simply say, “Sorry, we have no record of any such baby!” Such an answer would even, they assured each other, stand up to polygraph examination.

Fortunately, it was not the baby which the Reverend had come to see… and it was only Dr Frood who suffered any embarrassment as he explained to the Reverend the unusual circumstances of its birth and its recent disappearance, as they walked down the long corridor to the psychiatric wing.

“So… you say the mother was always placid and docile when feeding the baby?” he said, wanting to be quite sure of his facts… “Interesting… Tell me, did any of the other hospital staff suffer any of these psychic attacks?”

“No…” Dr Frood replied, somehow even more embarrassed that he appeared to be the only victim of Catherine’s telekinetic attacks. He began to wonder if the demented woman could be harbouring some unknown grudge against him…

Almost as if he was reading the doctor’s mind, the Reverend said, “Don’t worry; and don’t take it personally: in cases such as this, victims of possession often seem to reserve their attacks for what they regard as ‘authority figures’; anyone who tries to control their behaviour being seen as opposed to the chaotic reality the demon wants to create, you see… just as God and ‘Order’ is opposed to the Devil and the chaos he’d like to bring into the world…”

“I see,” the doctor replied, just as they entered the ward, “But doesn’t that mean that you’re likely to be attacked too?” But the priest was unable to answer him, as a stainless steel bedpan struck him with considerable force on the temple, spilling its noisome contents all over him and rendering him immediately unconscious. Dr Frood quickly ducked a number of other flying objects and, grabbing the priest underneath his armpits, swiftly dragged him backwards out of the ward.

***** ******* *****

At first, Warrigal had felt slightly out of place in Swannee and Catherine’s bedrooom, but it was the only logical place for him to stay; all the other bedrooms in the house being full of several children, but as he only had to sleep in it, he soon got used to the idea; after all, as the cricket team’s new ‘legal’ guardian, he was obliged to live with them in order to properly take care of them. John and Mary and Algernon and Vivienne had done a remarkable job, he thought, of taking care of their younger siblings in the absence of their parents, but as Vivienne had explained, “It’s not so difficult really; I mean, we’re used to helping Mum with chores and stuff already… and we pretty well know what needs to be done…”

“Yeah,” John interjected at this point, “it’s really just a matter of sticking to the routine… Well… except for me and Mary having to give up school to go to work…”

“Yeah,” Mary said, taking up John’s line of thought as easily as she might catch a mis-hit ball in the slips, “… the only real problem is that we were hoping to get into the University of South Oz on a cricketing scholarship next year, but that depends on me and John passing the end of year exams… But we’ve missed an awful lot of school now… though we have managed to keep up our cricketing practise, even through the off-season…”

“Season starts next week…” one of the little-uns piped up, with some concern evident in his voice.

“Don’t worry mate,” said John, “I’ve already enrolled us all in the Church’s Cricket League…” then, in an aside to Warrigal, he said, “The school’s run by the Church, you see, and they depend on us, ’cause we’re the parish’s ‘A’ team… This year we won’t even have to find an eleventh member, ’cause the bub can be our eleventh man…” To the rest of the team, he added, “He’ll make a good wicket-keeper for a start, I reckon, until we can find out whether he’s better at batting or bowling… though until he can walk, we’ll have to use a stand-in ‘runner’ for him, under the ‘disability inclusion’ rules… Still, that should be a ton of fun! One of the little-uns can push the stroller between the wickets…”

“Ton of fun! Fun’s ton…” Mary hummed to herself… then to the rest of the family she said, “That should be his name, I reckon… ‘Funston’… We gotta call him something, after all… ‘Can’t just keep calling him ‘the bub’… he’ll resent it later on, if we do… develop a complex or something…”

The team all nodded, automatically in sympathetic agreement, commenting variously, “Yep!”, “’Sright!” and “Good name!” As both a family and a team there was rarely, if ever, any dispute or argument amongst them; they all tended to agree, intuitively working in harmony for the sake of the ‘greater good’; for the sake of the ‘Game’… Warrigal had found it fascinating to watch such smooth cooperation among them; thinking they could probably teach a lot of adults how to behave… He could see now why both the school and the Church should come to depend on such a team; as an example of solidarity and team-work they were second to none…

“So!” Warrigal said, “First of all, John and Mary, you needn’t worry about the schooling you’ve missed; I’ll talk to your teachers and find out what lessons you’ve missed and tutor you personally ’til you’ve caught up; you’re both very bright and work so well it won’t take long at all… So you’ll still get to uni, okay?” The children nodded eagerly, simultaneously saying, “Thanks Wazza!” using the nickname they’d instinctively given their new carer, as the rest of the team cheered. “Now, down to more serious matters… When’s the first match of the season? When will little Funston get his first game?”

“Next Sad’dee!” the little-uns all chimed.

“So…” said Warrigal, “That gives us all a week to practice and get him ready! John and Algae, get the gear… stumps, balls, bats and pads; I reckon it’s time to hit the oval for a bit of a knock-about… ”

“Yaaaaaaay!” The little-uns yelled joyfully as they scrambled to change into their cricketing clothes, feeling better than they had felt for several months, while the older boys fetched the equipment and the older girls prepared a small mountain of sandwiches and several large flasks of tea.

***** ******* *****

“This is Warrigal Mirriyuula…” John said to the priest who organised the Parish Cricket League, by way of an introduction, “He’s our new carer…” Father O’Blivion shook Warrigal’s hand warmly as he replied, “Most pleased to meet you, Warrigal… May I call you Warrigal? Such an awful business about Mr and Mrs Swan…” Warrigal merely nodded, no wanting to say too much about this in front of the kids, who still expected to be reunited with their parents at some stage in the unspecified future… Then to the children, the priest said, “Your first game of the season is against the St Helvi’s Hospital Nurses team… I’m looking forward to a repeat of last year’s victory! Now, there’s someone I want you all to meet…” He looked around the oval until he saw another tall figure wearing a black cassock, “Father Batty!” He called, “Could you come here a moment, please…?” As the other priest joined the group, Father O’Blivion said, “This is Father Petros Batty… he’s come all the way from Rome to join our parish; he’s my new verger and he’s also volunteered to be our umpire this year…” As the children all dutifully shook hands with him, Father O’Blivion continued, “He’s our ‘Holy Roman Umpire’…”

***** ******* *****

Hell Hospital, Episode 16

19 Tuesday Jul 2011

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Smile and the world smiles with you ....

By theseustoo

(Disclaimer: this series of stories is completely fictional and none of the persons, places or institutions in these stories are real, but figments of my imagination. Any similarity to any real person, place or institution is entirely coincidental.)

“I sometimes think I’m not real, doc…” Dave was saying, as Dr Frood listened sympathetically, “…as if, well… I act… I sorta do things but it’s all empty… meaningless… not really anything to do with anything I want to do… not my own motivation… I kinda feel sometimes like I’m a character in a novel… Or a cartoon, more like… It doesn’t really matter what I do ’cause it’s all decided in advance by someone else anyway…”

“Decided by whom, do you think?” Dr Frood asked, intrigued by this line of thinking.

“I suppose by whoever it is that’s writing the story…” Dave had not really thought this far before; he was in the act of discovering these strange, hitherto indescribable feelings himself; Frood, as a professional psychologist, was proving to be an excellent sounding board to amplify hitherto nebulous feelings to such an extent that they began to take on discernible outlines… His gently probing questions began to fill the outlines with color… There was that cartoon reference again, he thought…

“You mean, ‘God’?”

“No…” Dave drawled thoughtfully, “Not ‘God’… It doesn’t have the same feel as ‘predestination’; with that you still have to think; to make choices and it seems as though you yourself are achieving your ‘destiny’… But this just feels somehow two-dimensional… empty… It’s like I’m just going through the motions… motions of actions… and even thoughts and conversations, which are all… empty! Which have all been somehow scripted by someone else… It’s as if most of what constitutes me isn’t really here at all… as if most of me is somewhere else…”

“I see…” Dr Frood said, “So you feel you have no volition of your own at all? Not even when you threatened that doctor?”

“No… I mean, I felt the pain when he twisted my foot, and that was my immediate response, but I’m not really a violent person, Doc… I’d never have acted on the threat; can’t think why I made it… It’s as if that sequence of events, like everything else in my life, had been scripted by someone else; someone who doesn’t really know me very well, either!”

“Hmmm, very interesting… But we’ll have to continue next week; time’s up for this session. I think we’re making progress though… your violent inclinations seem to stem from a sense of absolute powerlessness, which you express as these ‘cartoon-like’ feelings… But where does this sense of powerlessness come from? That is the question we must ask ourselves! You can think about that until next week’s session… ‘Bye for now…”

“’Bye Doc… and thanks…” Dave was surprised at how easily he’d been drawn into cooperating completely with his treatment… Although he’d more or less decided to ‘go along’ with the doctors and ‘play their game’ so he could get out of here as quickly as possible, he found himself actually fascinated by what his treatment was revealing about certain aspects of his personality he’d never thought about before. Even his choice to acquiesce to his treatment was itself ’empty’, he thought. Powerlessness? Yes… he felt powerless… Somehow he needed to discover just who or possibly what was the ‘Author’. And what was the plot? Or did he really want to know the plot? Perhaps it was better not to know… Would such knowledge be of any use anyway? Would there be any way he could influence the Author’s ‘writing’ even if he knew who it was? But then, he just couldn’t stand not knowing… Yes, he thought as he walked back to the ward, he had much to ponder.

***** ******* *****

Catherine’s hysterical outburst brought nurses running. Immediately realising that the baby was missing, and spotting the open french windows, they automatically assumed the dingo must have taken the baby out through them and gave chase immediately. On the way they bumped into Nurse Paula, who was quick to hide her cigarette behind her back as, fearful for her job, she improvised hastily, “Yes! I saw it! It went thataway!”

As she hoped the rescue party also assumed that Paula was part of the posse which had been stirred into action by Catherine’s distressed yells. As the nurses chased their imaginary dingoes out through the french windows, doctors also arrived; one of the latter prepared a syringe with a strong sedative and within a few seconds Catherine was unconscious. Later, when she regained what in her had passed for ‘consciousness’ for the past few months, she was once more her ‘normal’ zombie-like self, almost totally lacking any emotional responses, her mind now once again totally withdrawn into itself.

***** ******* *****

When Mirriyuula introduced himself and their baby sibling as their new, FaYS-appointed guardian, explaining that he had come to take care of them all and that he had also brought their baby sibling to them too, because the hospital could no longer care for the baby, which in any case, needed to be with its family, they saw nothing the least bit questionable about his story except perhaps for why it had taken them so long to decide what to do.

They were, however, a bit more sceptical when he tried to suggest that they were all in danger and that he needed to move them and the baby to a place of safety forthwith. Vivienne, always the sceptic, however, even when completely missing the point, did not entirely trust the sharp-faced stranger, in spite of his almost constant smile.

“How do we even know it’s really our baby though? I mean, how do we know you brought the right bub?” she demanded.

“Yeah! ‘Sright!” some of the younger ones immediately chorused, “how do we know it’s ours?!”

Before Mirriyuula could even begin to formulate an answer, however, John interrupted, “That’s easy!” he exclaimed, and, taking the cricket ball out of the blazer pocket it habitually lived in, he aimed the leather-bound missile straight at the infant’s head. The Dog-Spirit gasped in fear as the missile sped towards the baby’s head, but at the very last instant the baby’s tiny arms both shot up and caught the ball firmly as it gurgled enthusiastically, “Owza’?!”

“Well then,” said John with finality, “there’s no doubt about it now! It’s ours alright!” Turning to Mirriyuula, he said, “Okay Mr… where do you want to take us?”

***** ******* *****